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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Doug Fast designed the contemporary “green” Starbucks logo (a neat history of which can be found here). From the Deadprogrammer (Michael Krakovskiy, 6/17/05) website:

I [Doug Fast] am the guy who designed the green SBUX logo. The original brown SBUX logo was designed in 1971 by my employer before I started working for him in January 1974. (I still work there as a designer) The design company was then called Heckler/ Bowker, here in Seattle.

The cup is anonymous until the logo gets slapped on it. As someone who really really likes iced coffee, the hard plastic to-go cups that were available for a short time last year caught my eye. At least they would have caught my eye had I seen them in time. They sold out quickly. Then they showed up on eBay, where they were going for $40 or so each. Then they showed up again in stores about two months ago, and also on the Starbucks website! Here they were going at a much more reasonable price. You also save 10¢ a trip for using a recycled container. Apparently they’re out of stock again, at least they’re not at the store I usually go to.

The cup is essentially the normal to-go Solo cup in 16 or 20 oz capacity, double walled to prevent condensation sweating. Only it’s in acrylic (BPA free). Sure they come with a Starbucks style price tag, $12.95 for the grande and $14.95 for the venti, but then again, what did you expect?

Starbucks to-go cold cups. Reduce, reuse, recycle!

They come with green straws with a bump on the end to keep them from sliding through the hole on the cap. Replacement straws can now also be purchased. $3.95 for four straws, either grande or venti sized.

Here’s how they come shipped from Starbucks. The picture shows a package of two grande cups.

I had to have two of each. Grande (16 oz) is on the left, venti (20 oz) on the right.

Close up of the label.

UPC symbols. Grande (16 oz) is on the left, venti (20 oz) on the right.

Even though I give credit to Solo for the cup, there are plenty of other cup manufacturers of similar items. While the profile of the reusable cup is different from the disposable cup, the volumes are the same, so don’t be fooled. The last disposable cup I got from Starbucks was made by Pactiv. Now I reuse.